Sonakshi, 15, an intellectually disabled girl, was one of the beneficiaries when the Delhi Government rolled out a scheme in 2019 to give a pack of six sanitary pads to out-of-school girls at ₹6. But her family says they haven’t received them for a “long time” now.
“I spend around 40% of my salary on her medicines and other expenses. Any assistance from the government is very helpful,” said her father Yogesh Kumar, 47, who earns ₹20,000 a month.
The Delhi government scheme of distributing sanitary pads to over 30,000 out-of-school girls across the city at ₹6 has not been happening for two and a half years, officials and ASHA workers told the The Hindu. The contract which was signed in 2019 with a private company expired in March 2020. The government is yet to finalise a new vendor to supply sanitary pads, sources said. Many of the beneficiaries of the scheme used to be from economically backward background, the officials said.
Despite multiple attempts, the Delhi government spokesperson did not offer a comment.
Restructuring scheme
The government is currently in the process of restructuring the scheme to give 10 sanitary pads – free of cost – to about 50,000 out-of-school girls and 20,000 girl students in municipal corporation-run schools every month. “Also, the government is planning to give free sanitary pads every month to 6,000 ASHA workers and 11,000 anganwadi workers as part of the scheme,” an official said.
Anita, 38, an ASHA worker, who distributed sanitary pads to Sonakshi’s house, said that the scheme was functional for a couple of months and it had stopped just before the pandemic hit the city.
“The scheme is more important for girls from jhuggis (slums) or otherwise they will be using cloth pieces instead of sanitary pads. This won’t be hygienic and will create health issues for them,” she added.
Lakhvinder Kaur, another ASHA worker, said that she used to distribute sanitary pads to girls under the scheme in poorer neighbourhoods. “Some used to complain about the quality of the pads, but families who could not afford to buy sanitary pads still found them useful and used to ask for them.”
Menstrual hygiene
The scheme is part of the Central government’s Menstrual Hygiene Scheme (MHS), wherein funds are given to State governments to purchase sanitary pads. The scheme was implemented under the name of “Udaan” by the Delhi government in April 2019.
Though the target was to reach 50,000 adolescent girls a month, the government was able to distribute it to about 30,000-35,000 girls on an average. The scheme was also aimed at creating awareness about safe and hygienic menstrual health practices.
In December 2019, the Delhi High Court had asked the city government and civic bodies to keep providing sanitary pads for free to school-going girls and those who dropped out, and continue with their awareness programmes and schemes to promote menstrual hygiene.
